Equality laws enshrine mothers’ right to breastfeed in public

The Disability Rights Commission has said a new green paper on tackling discrimination and inequality “fails to measure up” because it contains no measures to toughen up enforcement or make it easier to bring anti-discrimination cases.

The paper was produced yesterday by the Department of Communities and Local Government as a prelude to a Single Equality Bill designed to streamline existing legislation.

The executive director of drugs charity Release, Sebastian Saville, says 10 years of New Labour may have made the state of drugs policy worse due to its exclusive emphasis on the links between drugs and crime, rather than the rights and wellbeing of individuals.

A system of “virtual wards” in Croydon, under which people at most risk of hospital admissions are given intensive treatment at home by community matrons, will be catering for 1,000 people by the end of the year, mostly with long-term conditions.

Under the system, a ward administrator acts as a contact point for community matrons, social workers, occupational therapists and physiotherapists working with service users and they hold a daily teleconference “ward round”, in which the most vulnerable people are discussed.

Home Secretary John Reid will say he wants to test giving convicted paedophiles hormone injections that suppress their sex drives. Offenders will be told they must agree to take the hormones if they want to be let out of jail early.

Elderly patients are being released from hospital too soon, putting their lives at risk, charities warned yesterday. Last year, 147,257 patients over 75 had to be sent back to hospital as “emergency admissions” within 28 days of being discharged.

Source:- Daily Mail, Wednesday June 13, page 20

Schools need to teach happiness

Every school should teach children how to be happy, according to economics expert Professor Richard Layard.

Scottish ministers are exploring what influence they can bring to bear on Westminster over asylum issues.

The new approach was disclosed as another family was detained by immigration officers in a dawn raid – believed to be the second enforced removal from a home since the new administration was formed in May.

The issue of dawn raids flared up under the previous administration, when Jack McConnell, as the then First Minister, intervened by seeking a new protocol with his Westminster counterparts on the issue.

A picture of the immigration patterns of Eastern Europeans to Wales can be drawn for the first time.

A study, carried out by the Welsh Assembly Government, shows that between May 2004 and March 2007, 17,300 people from the A8 countries, the eight Eastern European states which joined the EU in May 2004, applied to be given National Insurance numbers in Wales.